University students win national-level cyber security contest

Muscat: Students from Sultan Qaboos University have won the final round of the Oman National Cyber Security CTF Competition, organised by the Arab Regional Cyber Security centre and Cyber Talents, that was held at the university on November 11.

The first place was won by "INFSSec" Team, which includes Rami Al-Amri, Abdul Rahman BaOmar and Dr. Mohammed Al Fairuz.

With Micro Trend as a strategic partner, and hosted by Oman CERT, the competition had participants demonstrate their technical ability in cyber security field. Winners of Oman National CTF will be directly qualified to play in the Arab Finals in December. The winning team will have the opportunity to travel and stay in Egypt from to participate in the regional cyber security competition among Arab countries at Cairo Security Camp.

The competition orientation sessions were held in different colleges and universities in Oman between September 25 and 28, 2017. Nine teams from 10 educational institutions in the Sultanate were qualified to participate in the final of the competition. The final round contained several challenges for contestants in teams 9 in various areas of information security.

The second place was bagged by the team is "Anonymous" that consists of Abdul Aziz Ambusaidi and Marwan Al Maamari. "Oman's Digital Army” team, which consists of Said Al-Bahari, Ahmed Al-Reesi and Hazza Al-Fahdi won the third place.

Commenting on their victory in the in the competition, the SQU information student Abdulrahman BaOmar said that the competition enabled us to apply their skills and capabilities in cybersecurity.

Dr. Mohammed added, "The atmosphere of the Oman Cyber Security Competition was beautiful and competitive among all the participating teams, which returned the scientific benefit to students and participants, and strengthened the spirit of cooperation and teamwork in accomplishing difficult tasks and achieving goals. The competition created the experienced students and encouraged them to make more efforts to understand the secrets of cybersecurity and participate again in the upcoming competitions to promote this knowledge and develop and refined better".